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Ukrainian Official Calls for Talks With Protesters
U.S. Official Tells Ukraine’s Protest Leaders to Find a Solution
(35 minutes later)
KIEV, Ukraine — The first vice prime minister of Ukraine, Serhiy Arbuzov, has called for negotiations to end a standoff with thousands of protesters who are demanding the resignation of the government and of President Viktor F. Yanukovich, saying the government was open to discussing early elections.
KIEV, Ukraine — A senior American official urged the leaders of the Ukrainian protest movement on Thursday to find a solution to the crisis that would adhere to the Ukrainian Constitution — effectively telling them that President Viktor F. Yanukovich must remain in power despite the demands by hundreds of thousands of demonstrators for his ouster.
Mr. Arbuzov, speaking in an interview late Wednesday on Channel 5 television here, was far from definitive, refusing to give any assurance that such snap elections would take place. “I’m saying that we should negotiate, sit down at the negotiating table,” he said. “I admit that when we sit down at the negotiating table, such proposals may be heard.”
The official, Victoria Nuland, who is assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, met with top protest leaders in the occupied Trades Union building here that has become a de facto headquarters for the swirling protest movement. Even as the meeting unfolded, more than 10,000 demonstrators thronged Independence Square outside.
The next regular parliamentary elections are set for 2017. A presidential election is scheduled for February 2015.
Ms. Nuland is in Ukraine to attend the ministerial meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, in place of Secretary of State John Kerry, who canceled plans to attend after Mr. Yanukovich’s refused to sign sweeping political and free trade agreements with the European Union that had been in the works for years.
The overture did little to slow the protest movement by throngs of demonstrators who have occupied public buildings and a landmark plaza for almost a week. On Thursday morning, a convoy of cars driven by demonstrators blockaded vehicle access to the headquarters of the Berkut, the special riot police officers who were involved in a bloody crackdown on the protesters on Saturday morning.
Ms. Nuland’s comments at the meeting, those in attendance said, echoed her formal remarks at the ministerial conference.
Demonstrators continued to occupy Independence Square in the center of Kiev, the capital, where they have established a small tent city and constructed barriers topped with razor wire around a wide perimeter. They also continued to occupy City Hall and at least two other public buildings, and are blockading the Cabinet Ministry building in a bid to paralyze the government.
In a speech to the conference that was filled with lofty rhetoric, her bottom line was this: “Democratic norms and the rule of law must be upheld,” Ms. Nuland said.
The protesters, a loose coalition of opposition political parties, civic organizations and student groups, have shown little confidence that their demands will or can be met through existing government structures. A motion of no confidence in the government was defeated in Parliament this week and Mr. Yanukovich has left the country for a state visit to China.
She pointedly did not mention Mr. Yanukovich, and participants in the meeting said it was clear that Ms. Nuland was not expressing support for him. At the same time, the implications of her strong statement on the rule of law were clear.
Before leaving, Mr. Yanukovich gave a television interview in which he appeared relaxed and suggested that opposition political leaders were getting ahead of themselves and should wait for 2015 to challenge him. He gave no indication that he was considering early elections.
Complicating the effort to address the unrest in Ukraine is the country’s severe economic crisis, which will require a financial aid package of some $17 billion or more. That has made Ukraine particularly vulnerable to foreign influence as officials look to virtually every big power — Russia, China, Europe and the United States — for potential help.
While there have been some defections from the majority Party of Regions, which supports Mr. Yanukovich, the vote showed that for now at least, his coalition with the Communist Party is intact, and he is not facing a widespread internal revolt.
It is not yet clear where that help will come from.
Opinion polls, however, suggest that he is now deeply unpopular for refusing to sign far-reaching political and trade agreements with the European Union that had been in the works for years — the decision that set off the initial protests. Ukraine is also facing a severe economic crisis and is in need of a major aid package. Depending on how the economic crisis is resolved, Mr. Yanukovich’s support could erode further.
European leaders have said they will not engage in a bidding war with the Kremlin for influence over Ukraine. At the same time, Ms. Nuland made clear that the United States disapproved of Mr. Yanukovich’s decision not to sign the accords with Europe.
Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, speaking at the opening of a ministerial conference of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which is being held in Kiev this week, said all decisions about the political future of the country should be made at the ballot box.
“There should be no doubt about where the United States stands on this,” she said. “We stand with the people of Ukraine who see their future in Europe and want to bring their country back to economic health and unity.”
“Our opinion is that all issues related to the governing authorities should be resolved exclusively during elections,” Mr. Azarov said at the opening of the assembly of foreign ministers and other diplomats. “We recognize the protests. We are ready for dialogue. But this dialogue must be peaceful and we made it clear to our opponents that there are democratic electoral procedures.”
Other foreign diplomats, including the German foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, have also used the occasion of the ministerial meeting to meet with opposition leaders. But the meeting with Ms. Nuland, which was described by several participants, effectively drew a new reality for the protest leaders. They include a pro-Western businessman, Petro Poroshenko, and the leaders of the three main opposition parties in Parliament: Arseniy P. Yatseniuk of the Fatherland coalition; the champion boxer Vitali Klitschko, of the Udar party; and Oleg Tyagnybok, the leader of the nationalist Svoboda Party.
The protesters are not the only ones suggesting that the crisis will be resolved only through some special negotiations outside the normal workings of government. The speaker of Parliament, Volodymyr Rybak, has called for “round table” discussions to resolve the crisis, using the same phrase used for negotiations that were held in 2004 to address Ukraine’s Orange Revolution. In that case, however, the mass protests were over a disputed election and the resolution — a repeat of the vote — was easy to identify and relatively simple to carry out.
Also in attendance were Yuri V. Lutsenko, a former interior minister and field commander of the 2004 Orange Revolution, and Evgenia Tymoshenko, the daughter of Ukraine’s jailed former prime minister, Yulia V. Tymoshenko. Ms. Nuland was accompanied by the American ambassador in Ukraine, Geoffrey R. Pyatt.
In this case, protesters are furious that Mr. Yanukovich, under pressure from Russia, refused to sign the agreements with the European Union, which many view as the key to a brighter political and economic future. At this point, it is not clear that even simply signing the accords would satisfy his opponents, who are demanding his resignation.
Ms. Nuland’s strong message in support of a constitutional solution has forced the protest leaders to confront the likelihood that they will be unable to achieve the ousting of Mr. Yanukovich, which has become the protesters’ top demand. They could, however, still attain another of their top goals with the resignation of Prime Minister Mykola Azararov and his government.
In place of the agreements, Mr. Yanukovich has said he wants to repair trade relations with Russia in hopes of stabilizing the country’s economy. He has called for three-way talks with Russia and Europe, but European officials have shown no willingness to participate.
Mr. Yanukovich’s decision, under heavy pressure from Russia, to reject the accords with the European Union, set off the protest movement, which then gained momentum after a violent crackdown by riot police on several hundred demonstrators early Saturday morning.
Western leaders say t they remain open to signing the deals with Ukraine but are not prepared to engage in a bidding war with Moscow.
Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Kiev last Sunday, and since then demonstrators have occupied not only the landmark Independence Square, where they have set up barriers around a wide perimeter, but also City Hall and several other public buildings, including the Trades Union building where Thursday’s meeting took place.
Ukraine’s three former presidents, Leonid M. Kravchuk, Leonid D. Kuchma and Viktor A. Yushchenko, have issued a joint statement also calling for round-table talks. “The way out has to be found through an open dialogue with civic society,” the former presidents wrote. “The solution to the political crisis needs to be urgently found in the format of a national round table.”
The protesters are a loose coalition of opposition political parties, civic organizations and student groups. No one leader has emerged — indeed the three party leaders are rivals — and so substantial internal negotiation is expected before there is any formal response to the position expressed by Ms. Nuland.
The 2015 presidential elections appear to be a major factor in Mr. Yanukovich’s decisions. As a condition of signing the accords, Western leaders were demanding the release of Ukraine’s jailed former prime minister, Yulia V. Tymoshenko — Mr. Yanukovich’s main political rival — so that she could seek medical treatment in Germany for chronic back problems.
The civic and student groups have been particularly skeptical all along that the established politicians would be able to deliver the results they seek.
Ms. Tymoshenko is a tenacious opponent and it seems unlikely that Mr. Yanukovich would trust her to stay out of Ukraine or to ignore Ukrainian politics if she were released.
The prospect of a solution that leaves Mr. Yanukovich in power, at least until the next presidential election in 2015, and would allow him to run as planned for a second five-year term, is unlikely to sit well with any of the protest leaders or the tens of thousands of people on the street. After promising for more than a year that he would sign the accords with the European Union, he is now widely distrusted.
In addition, Russia exerted heavy pressure on Mr. Yanukovich to derail the agreements with Europe, sensing an expansion of Western economic influence similar to the expansion of military power through NATO. The Kremlin threatened severe economic sanctions that could have devastated the Ukrainian economy, particularly the eastern portion of the country, which forms a major part of Mr. Yanukovich’s political base.
Nowhere is that antipathy toward him stronger than among supporters of Ms. Tymoshenko, the former prime minister, whose prosecution and seven-year sentence on abuse of authority charges has been widely criticized in the West as an effort by Mr. Yankovich to sideline his main political rival.
The meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, an intergovernmental group, could not have come at a worse time, drawing high-level officials and the world’s attention to Kiev just as scenes of chaos and unrest grip the capital. Several dozen protesters picketed the meeting site.
“What European leaders understand now is they are dealing with a person who cheats them and who lies,” Evgenia Tymoshenko, the former prime minister’s daughter, said in an interview on Thursday. “There can be no negotiation with a person who cheats and lies.”
Normally, holding the annual chairmanship of the organization is considered an honor and nations revel in their role as host. In Ukraine’s case, however, it has given foreign officials an easy way to express their disapproval of the political situation.
Protest leaders, however, may not have a choice. While it is possible to dissolve the government, Western officials say they see no legal means, within the existing Ukrainian Constitution, to remove Mr. Yanukovich from office.
Secretary of State John Kerry and Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, pointedly canceled their plans to attend the meeting. The German foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, used his visit here to visit Independence Square, the center of protest activities, to meet with opposition leaders and to show his support for peaceful demonstrations.
Ms. Nuland’s remarks effectively throw cold water on the calls by some Ukrainian officials, including the Parliament speaker, Volodymyr Rybak, for so-called round-table talks, using the same phrase for negotiations that helped resolve the Orange Revolution nine years ago.
Western diplomats had been pressing Ukraine to promise that there would be no attempt to forcibly remove the demonstrators from the square — a commitment they seemed to receive. The interior minister announced on Wednesday that he had ordered the police not to use force against peaceful protesters.
At a human rights summit meeting in Washington on Wednesday, President Obama’s national security adviser, Susan E. Rice, sharply criticized Russia over its efforts to maintain influence in the former Soviet Union, including pressuring Ukraine to ditch the accords with Europe.
“We often can cooperate with Russian on nonproliferation, arms control, counterterrorism and other vital interests,” Ms. Rice said. “But, as we meet these mutual challenges, we don’t remain silent about the Russian government’s systematic efforts to curtail the actions of Russian civil society, to stigmatize the L.G.B.T. community, to coerce neighbors like Ukraine who seek closer integration with Europe, or to stifle human rights in the North Caucasus.
“We deplore selective justice and the prosecution of those who protest the corruption and cronyism that is sapping Russia’s economic future and limiting its potential to play its full role on the world stage.”
Russia has angrily denounced such criticism from the West, saying that the European Union is strong-arming Ukraine and other former Soviet republics into signing the accords and that Russia is simply looking out for its own economic interests and that of Ukraine, which is a close trading partner and shares an ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious history with Russia.
